An Us in the End
by ShibbyRainCat
Summary: Takes place after Lies My Parents Told Me. Spike confronts Buffy after his fight with Wood, in her bedroom of course. Heh... Read and Review ^__^


Author's Note: So what can I say. I'm still waiting for that moment between Spike and Buffy . . . Not there yet, but I just wrote a simple little one shot about that moment. Well what I thought might happen. Tried to keep it in character, but what can I say. I like them a little sappier then they ever really are.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy or Spike. They belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Why am I even saying this since you all MUST be aware of this if you're reading Buffy fanfiction.  
  
This takes place after 'Lies my Parent told me', so there may be some spoilers for that episode if you haven't seen it. Which bears the question . . . WHY haven't you seen it?  
  
Read and Review if you want to. Can't make you of course . . . but you must know it's just nice to hear if people like what you do.  
  
An Us in the End  
  
"I don't have the trigger anymore . . . "  
  
Buffy turned around and leaned against the door, watching Spike standing across from her, leaning against the opposite wall like he was meant to be in her room. She had just shut the door on her watcher, her friend, the closest thing to a father she had ever had . . . and it was all because of the man, the vampire standing in her room.  
  
Pushing away from the wall, Spike took a few steps forward but stopped in the middle of the room, realizing suddenly that he didn't really have any rights to get closer.  
  
"Don't blame the old man. He was doing what he thought was right."  
  
Hearing this again for some reason pissed Buffy off and she pushed away from the wall and stalked closer to Spike, sparks shooting from her eyes. " I don't care why he did it. I don't care that he thought it was right. It wasn't his decision to make." Buffy stepped back again, sighing. "I have this fight coming up, for the safety of the world and all that usual stuff. I need all the fighters I have, and for some reason Giles and Robin thought it best to take out one of my best."  
  
Spike kept quiet during her tirade, understanding that it was best to let a Slayer go on uninterrupted. Interrupting usually only led to dusty ends . . .  
  
"Wood has no excuse." Spike growled, remembering the way the man had lured him into that room. No vengeance, sure. Everyone always has a room where they keep hundreds of crosses. That's perfectly normal . . .  
  
"I didn't know." Buffy said quietly, realizing that she hadn't told him that yet and feeling that she needed to make sure that he understood that one fact. The idea of him thinking that she would ever take a part in that . . .  
  
"Of course you didn't, pet. I know you well enough to know if you wanted me dead you'd be staking me yourself."  
  
For some reason that statement in itself pissed her off even more, Buffy controlled her impulse urge to strangle the blonde vampire. One it wouldn't really work since he was already dead, and two he was just telling the truth. If for some reason she HAD to kill him, she would do it herself. She just didn't think that she had to kill him. . . .  
  
"So how did you get the trigger to stop working?" Buffy changed the subject, crossing her arms letting him know that now she was in General Buffy mode and needed information.  
  
"Actually . . ." Spike smirked slightly. "Got to thank that wanker. While putting me through the motions, made me relieve some memories. Got to the root of the whole song related to my mother business. Figured out some things. Broke it. Simple as that." Spike wasn't much more forthcoming about the information.  
  
"And?" Buffy uncrossed her arms, now more curious why such a simple song was important to Spike, not to mention the curiousity of his mother. The vampire, for certain understandable reasons wasn't very forthcoming about his life as a human. His name had been William, he'd been English, wasn't as cool as he was now. That was about as far as he ever got. He certainly NEVER mentioned his family.  
  
"And what?" Spike frowned. After Buffy's speech a while back, about how he was too weak and whining, he'd stopped doing everything she said.  
  
"And why was that song so important?" Buffy was getting impatient.  
  
"As I said earlier. My mum liked it, was one of her favourites. End of Story." Spike took a step forward, determined to extradite himself from this situation before Buffy wheedled more out of him, but as he started to move past her, her hand on his arm stopped him. Just like any of her touches did, it turned him to mush and once again he was her whipped little puppy dog. He sighed and stopped.  
  
"She had consumption. My mother. She was my entire world when I was alive. Always there for me, listened to my. . . " Spike paused and thought carefully. "listened to me prattle on about the girl I liked. But she was dying. So when Drusilla made me a vampire, I wanted her to be with me forever."  
  
Buffy turned and stared at Spike. At first she had to control the urge to laugh at the idea of Spike telling Drusilla that he wanted to bring his MOTHER along on their killing sprees, but then the weight of what Spike was telling her made her skin turn cold. He had turned his own mother into a monster.  
  
"I turned her into a monster." Spike continued, unknowingly repeating Buffy's own thoughts. His voice though was sad and Buffy knew that this wasn't where the story ended. "And she did become a monster. Not like when I was turned and became free. The things she said. . . " Spike stopped, tears choking him but none came to his eyes. "I've spent all these years regretting what I did, that I turned her. That I killed her." Spike turned his eyes to look at Buffy, staring at her carefully.  
  
She blinked and swallowed hard, trying to fathom what it would be like to kill your own mother, monster or not. She had to see her mother dead on the couch . . . but her death had been natural, nothing she could to have stopped it. Spike though . . . to destroy your world.  
  
"Fighting with Wood . . . he made me realize something. My mum loved me. What took her place was a demon, all the things that were said were from that demon, not my mum. I can deal with the fact that I killed her, I admit that. But at least I know she loved me." Spike smiled at that, and for once Buffy saw what an actual smile did to Spike's face. His face was practically lit up.  
  
"So Robin made you realize this . . . ?" Buffy was still confused how the slayer's son had played a part.  
  
"See he's been angry all this time because I killed his mother. Which is fair, hence the pass I gave him. But what he never realized was she didn't love him." Spike said this simply, shrugging his shoulders.  
  
Blinking a few times, Buffy shook her head at this. "No, of course she loved him." The idea of a mother not loving her son was beyond her grasp.  
  
"Not enough to stop being a slayer." Spike stared at Buffy hard at this point. "Slayers may love their family and friends. But never enough to give it up. Never enough to step back and live for those around them. Nothing is ever worth it." Spike said all this a bit bitterly, and they both knew that he wasn't referring to Nikki Wood any longer.  
  
"That's not true! It's just that slayers have the job of saving the world! We can't just stop. I've tried!" Buffy took a step toward Spike, getting angry at his assumption.  
  
"Keep telling yourself that , pet." Spike's lips curled up at the corner. "Everyone has a choice. You can stop, you just don't want to."  
  
"That would be giving up!" Buffy was fuming now, but she wasn't sure if she was angry with Spike or with the duty of being a slayer.  
  
"Try telling that to a little boy." Spike scoffed. "A slayer shouldn't have a kid if she won't devote her life to him. The mission comes first don't it?"  
  
Buffy stopped short at that last bit, hadn't she told Wood the same thing just that night.  
  
"Oh well." Spike ran a hand through his hair. "I didn't come here to argue with you love. I just came to let you know that I don't have the first's little bell in my head. And to try and tell you not to go so hard on the Watcher. While Wood was doing a vendetta towards me, Giles was doing what he thought was the best. He was right too, if I still had that trigger you all were in danger. You would have had to kill me at some point."  
  
"I told you I'm not ready for you to be gone yet . . . " Buffy said quietly. Realizing that saying that was just going to open a can of worms again, she moved along. "And you're a good fighter and I need that. You're helping to train the girls as well."  
  
"Who I am guessing are all bloody afraid of me." Spike laughed softly. "As they should be as well. They need to learn that vampires are not meant to be friends."  
  
"Do they?" Buffy tilted her head to the side, watching Spike closely.  
  
"You, love, have the knack for some reason of making friends with creatures that aren't fit to be stepped upon." Spike laughed quietly, a bitter ring to it. "Angel and I seem to always be the exception to the rule. The bitty slayers though . . . they need to go into the Slaying business with one clear rule. Vampires deserve to die."  
  
"You and Angel don't deserve to die." Buffy said quietly, still watching him carefully.  
  
"Don't be daft! Of course we do!" Spike shook his head. "Probably we do above most other vampires, for the things we've done in our past. Sure we've got these bright shiny souls now. But that don't change what we've done. We work towards redemption, but as I said before we're the exception to the rule."  
  
Buffy moved a little closer, resting her hand on Spike's arm again. "I don't think it's going to help those girls if we try and make their world black and white. You and I both know that's not true. Not all the enemies are going to be demons, and not all the demons are going to try and kill them."  
  
Spike looked down and stared at the hand resting lightly on his arm, feeling the heat seeping into his cold dark flesh. As always he felt more alive while he was near her, and that was good enough for him.  
  
"I suppose you're right. But try not to give them the idea that all the vampires in the world are as gorgeous as me." He grinned at her. She swatted at him gently.  
  
"Of course I won't. No one's as gorgeous as you." Buffy snorted but then stopped short, going dead still as she realized what had just come out of her mouth. Spike too wasn't making a move, swearing he had just heard her wrong.  
  
"Except Angel of course." Buffy covered lamely, her face now a few shades redder then it had been. Ever since Spike had come back the two of them had quite conveniently agreed to not talk about their relationship. Not that they had agreed out loud, but neither party really wanted to bring it up.  
  
"Right, love." Spike smirked now, leaning a little closer to Buffy, inhaling her scent, and hearing her heartbeat going faster. She had never wanted to discuss their relationship, or lack of one, or what had happened between them. He knew she was quite aware that he still loved her, since it was after all quite obvious. Even her covering with Angel hadn't upset him like it normally would have. Mainly because he saw it as a cover, hastily thrown in there to make him ignore the fact that she had complimented him.  
  
"Oh for crying out loud." Buffy stepped back, looking at Spike with her eyes narrowed. "I don't have time to deal with us. I have this thing called the First to get rid of. I have slayers in training to . . . you know TRAIN. I have a watcher who thinks he can tell me what to do. A witch that's still trying to figure out her magic and is making moon eyes at one of said slayers in training. I have Xander and Anya who, well I'm not really sure what is going on there. And then there's Dawn who . . . actually she's been really good lately, can't complain about her. And of course Andrew who is just completely annoying." Buffy sighed, putting her hands on her hips and glaring at Spike who for his part was still stuck on the sentence that had included the word 'us'. "Spike?" Buffy waved a hand in his face.  
  
"Sorry." He shook his head and smiled. "I'm not trying to push you to deal with anything." Of course he wasn't pushing . . . every time he was near her he was far too wrapped up in what he should and shouldn't do around Buffy, ever since the bathroom . . . "I'm always here for you. Now that triggers gone, even more so. I won't be leaving, so we can discuss . . . whatever once you do what you always do."  
  
"You mean arrange a fashionable yet sensible wardrobe?" Buffy grinned, trying to joke out of the serious turn this conversation had taken.  
  
Spike reached a hand out and slid his fingers over her cheek gently, before pulling away. "Aside from that. Saving us."  
  
Buffy swallowed, still feeling the lingering presence of his fingers, cool against her skin. She had to wonder which us he was talking about.  
  
"Thanks Spike." She smiled, thanking him for so much more then just that compliment. Thanking him for all the times he'd listened to her, comforted her, held her hand, made her see when she was being an idiot. . .  
  
Spike just winked at her and moved past her to the door of her bedroom. "Get some sleep. I'll see you tomorrow." With that he walked out, shutting the door behind him.  
  
Buffy stared at the door for a while before turning and getting ready for bed. For some reason she felt like she had one less problem to deal with, that Spike and her had come to another wordless agreement. They would wait but in the end there would be an 'us' when they were both ready. Now if only the rest would be that simple. 


End file.
